President Trump will nominate 10 judges to serve on the federal judiciary today to fill some of the 127 vacancies in the federal court system.
The Daily Caller spoke to Attorney General Jeff Sessions last weekend about the timeline of upcoming appointments and Sessions appeared confident that judicial and U.S. attorney posts would be filled on time.
"We've got 127 federal judge vacancies that need to be confirmed, and then we've got 94 United States attorneys that need to be confirmed," Sessions stated. "So we're moving names forward. And we're trying to do good background checks to make sure that these U.S. attorneys are first rate because they are key leaders in the effort to reduce crime in America and create public safety."
He added, "So, we need to get them confirmed as fast as possible. I don't think we are much behind if at all, beyond historical times. Most U.S. attorneys are in by September or more before they are confirmed. We're hoping to get some in as soon as possible."
The Trump administration drew 10 appointments from the list of 21 potential Supreme Court nominees put together by the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation and that Trump released during the campaign, but McGahn told The Times it is also referring to other sources as well.
Justice Joan L. Larsen, a former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia and law professor at the University of Michigan, is one of the nominees on Trump's list. She now serves on the Michigan Supreme Court and is expected to be nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati.
"President Trump is building on the success of his nomination of Justice Gorsuch with an outstanding new slate of nominees for the lower federal courts. The nominees have stellar qualifications and a record of courageous commitment to the rule of law that will make them excellent additions to the federal bench," Judicial Crisis Network's Carrie Severino told TheDC in a statement. "When it comes to fulfilling his campaign promise to appoint strong, principled judges, Trump is knocking it out of the park."
Even if President Trump serves only one term, he has an excellent opportunity to remake the federal judiciary. After 8 years of President Obama, Trump should be able to name about a quarter of the federal bench in his first term. There are an unusual number of vacancies due to gridlock in Congress and Trump should be able to place his imprint on all of them given the change in filibuster rules.
How conservative will these judges be? The president does not have much margin for error given there are only 52 Republican Senators. So at least some of the judges may not be as conservative as many in the Republican base would like. But it's guaranteed that they will be far more conservative than any judges that would have been named by a President Clinton. That alone makes Trump's victory more than worth it for many conservatives.
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